How To Add Animation To A Model In Unity

Animation from external sources

Animation from external sources is imported into Unity in the same mode every bit regular 3D files. These files, whether they're generic FBX files or native formats from 3D software such every bit Autodesk® Maya®, Movie house 4D, Autodesk® 3ds Max®, or Blender™, tin incorporate animation data in the form of a linear recording of the movements of objects within the file.

An imported FBX 3D Asset containing an animation titled Slide — An imported FBX 3D Asset containing an blitheness titled 'Slide'

In some situations the object to exist blithe (eg, a graphic symbol) and the animations to become with it can be present in the same file. In other cases, the animations may exist in a split up file to the model to be blithe.

It may exist that animations are specific to a item model, and cannot exist re-used on other models. For case, a giant octopus terminate-boss in your game might accept a unique organization of limbs and bones, and its own prepare of animations.

In other situations, information technology may be that you have a library of animations which are to be used on various different models in your scene A Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Retrieve of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, yous place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary . For example, a number of dissimilar humanoid characters might all utilise the same walk and run animations. In these situations, information technology'south common to take a unproblematic placeholder model in your animation files for the purposes of previewing them. Alternatively, information technology is possible to use animation files fifty-fifty if they have no geometry at all, only the animation information.

When importing multiple animations, the animations can each exist every bit separate files inside your project binder, or you tin can extract multiple animation clips Animation information that can be used for blithe characters or simple animations. It is a simple "unit" piece of motion, such as (i specific instance of) "Idle", "Walk" or "Run". More info
Encounter in Glossary from a single FBX file if exported every bit takes from Move architect or with a plugin / script for Autodesk® Maya®, Autodesk® 3ds Max® or other 3D packages. You might want to practice this if your file contains multiple dissever animations arranged on a single timeline. For example, a long motility captured timeline might contain the animation for a few dissimilar jump motions, and y'all may want to cut out sure sections of this to use equally private clips and discard the rest. Unity provides animation cutting tools to achieve this when yous import all animations in i timeline by assuasive you to select the frame range for each clip.

Importing animation files

Before any animation tin can exist used in Unity, it must first be imported into your project. Unity can import native Autodesk® Maya® (.mb or .ma), Autodesk® 3ds Max® (.max), and Blender™ (.alloy), and too generic FBX files which can be exported from nearly animation packages. Note that importing from .alloy files requires a local installation of Blender™.

For more information, run across Importing.

Viewing and copying data from imported animation files

You can view the keyframes A frame that marks the start or end indicate of a transition in an animation. Frames in between the keyframes are called inbetweens.
See in Glossary and curves of imported animation clips in the Animation window. Sometimes, if these imported clips have lots of bones with lots of keyframes, the amount of information can expect overwhelmingly complex. For example, the paradigm below is what a humanoid running animation looks like in the Animation window:

To simplify the view, select the specific basic y'all are interested in examining. The Blitheness window then displays merely the keyframes or curves for those basic.

Limiting the view to just the selected bones — Limiting the view to but the selected bones

When viewing imported Animation keyframes, the Blitheness window provides a read-only view of the Blitheness data. To edit this data, create a new empty Animation Clip in Unity (see Creating a new Animation Clip), so select, copy and paste the Animation data from the imported Blitheness Clip into your new, writable Animation Clip.